Newsletters 2013-14 Focus newsletter, [3] spring | Page 6

PREPARING STUDENTS FOR LIFE
CRHS’s anti-bullying week promotes bystander awareness

N

early six months in the works, a week full of
anti-bullying awareness, bystander empowerment and school spirit flooded Coon
Rapids High School during the week of April 1.
And the best part for some students? Band-aids.
“No, seriously. It’s a fabulous lesson. In the
time it takes to put on a Band-aid, someone just
got bullied,” CRHS sophomore Janet Irankunda
said. “So we’re going to have all the students put
on a Band-aid in the morning, then challenge
them all not to say anything negative the rest of
the day.” Irankunda belongs to a student group
called “Obliviate the Hate,” whose primary goal
is to empower those who witness bullying to
intervene in conflicts.
The Band-aid lesson was just one of many
student-led lessons during Anti-Bullying Week.
Others included a student and staff orange-out
day—when all staff and students wore orange to

“

The facts are surprising
if you think about it. If a
bystander intervenes in
an act of bullying, the
conflict can end in
10 seconds or less.

”

- Janet Irankunda, student

school—on Wednesday, Spirit Day on Friday, and
even student-led morning announcements, among
other things.
Obliviate the Hate members taped a handprint
to every fourth student locker throughout the
school on Tuesday night, 650 in all, representing
the one in four students who are victims of bullying. They also sold awareness bracelets in the
cafeteria during lunch. In addition, during an allschool assembly on April 2, nationally recognized
and Emmy Award-winning motivational speaker
Mark Scharenbroich encouraged students to
respect others, be pleasant and happy, and to
make school a caring place for all.
“The facts are surprising if you think about it.
If a bystander intervenes in an act of bullying, the
conflict can end in 10 seconds or less,” said
Irankunda, who says she was intensely bullied.
She believes that if she or her fellow students had
the tools and knowledge she has now, things
might have been different for her.
Bystander empowerment and awareness are
the difference for Obliviate the Hate compared to
some other anti-bullying groups, according to
CRHS Assistant Principal Shannon Madison.
“This group, while it’s an anti-bullying group—
its core message is to give bystanders who witness
bullying conflicts the tools to intervene,” Madison
said. “It’s really very different from other groups
that just teach anti-bullying messages.”

Motivational speaker Mark Scharenbroich talked
informally to students after his presentation.

The Obliviate the Hate program is the result of
an "Empowering Bystander Grant" given to CRHS
and Centennial High School jointly by the Anoka
County Children and Family Council.
The grant allowed for each school to gather 50
teacher-selected student participants who would
be good ambassadors, Madison said. “This group
of kids that I’ve gotten to know—they’re special,”
Madison said. “For many of them, they’re here
because they’ve been bullied. They want to make a
difference.”
They plan to bring their message to Coon
Rapids Middle School next year. ■

Anoka teens teach teens about living with disabilities

T

o help raise awareness of students living
with disabilities, and to honor February as
National Disability Awareness Month, the
students in Ann Sarazin’s Anoka High School
(AHS) special education class planned dozens of
interactive activities during lunch time Monday,
Feb. 25 through Friday, Mar. 1.
Hundreds of students stopped by the Disability
Awareness Table to try the activities. All week
Sarazin’s students heard, “that looks fun, I want to
try it,” from their curious peers. To simulate the
oversensitivity to sensory stimulus caused by
autism, students were subjected to intense sound
and light while someone talked to them. To
demonstrate what it might be like to be blind,
students were blindfolded, given a walking stick
and asked to navigate through a wall of lockers.
Other disabilities highlighted were speech and
language impairments, developmental cognitive
delays, traumatic brain injury, specific learning
disabilities and more.
One of Sarazin’s students, Jordan Peschong, a
ninth grader living with Traumatic Brain Injury,
helped plan the events. Jordan recently became
an outspoken advocate for himself and others with

disabilities. He explains, “When people know my
disability, they are more kind to me. I help them
understand; things that are simple for them are
harder for people with a disability, like me.”
Early in the school year, Jordan and other
students in Sarazin’s class began discussing selfadvocacy and the importance of teaching instructors and peers to be sensitive to their needs. “The
students got fired up,” she said. “They immediately started to talk about how they could educate
people. We started with the idea to create a oneday event, but Principal Mike Farley said, ‘take a
week,’ and so we did.”
In order to organize an entire week of activities, the special education students asked the AHS
Student Council for help. Nicole Pexa, a student
council member, said her response was, “an
immediate, yes! I don’t really see someone’s
disability at first. But once I learn a person’s
backstory, why they are the way they are, I
become really more sensitive and aware.”
Nicole and the other student council members
worked in partnership with the youth living with
disabilities to plan awareness activities. “They did
everything,” Sarazin proudly stated. “The students
worked together to define the activities, decide
who would be in charge of which topics and days,
and they even promoted their efforts around the
school. All exercises during the five-day period

“

Kids come up to me that
never talked to me before
and they give me a h